B
Bryon van Prooyen
Hi Guys,
I have posted a couple of times now in the a.c.periphs.mainboard.asus group
trying to find a fix for my system
freezing everytime I do MPEG2 to MPEG2 re-encoding. Like to see if anyone
here has a clue as to what may be happening.
My system...
Asus K8N-E Deluxe Mobo Bios 1.05
Athlon64 2300 (Not overclocked)
1024MB Kingmax DDR-466 (2x512 - Slot 1 & 2)
Asus 9600XT Video
WD 120GB SATA (Boot)
WD 80GB ATA (Data)
480W Tagan PS (TG480-U01)
Windows XP SP2 AND Windows XP 64bit Edition 1218
VisionPlus DTV Digital TV tuner
I am having problems where post (ie a day or two after initaial recording -
so not simultaneous) re-encoding MPEG2 streams from my VisionPlus DTV card
using pretty much any MPEG2 software I can find (including TMpgEnc)
eventually freezes my computer. I normally get through the first 5 minutes
of video (10 minutes encoding time) before it freezes. It does not BSOD or
reboot - just freezes with no mouse movement or keyboard response. I have
found that turning off MMX, SSE, SSE2, etc in TmpgEnc appears to make
everything work better, but it makes it 5 times slower to encode and I am
not satisfied that this is a solution.
I am now convinced the system is otherwise stable. I have tried Memtest86+,
prime95, and just about all of the load tests on the "Ultimate Boot CD"
(which is great BTW) and all pan out flawlessly. I did play through the
entire Doom 3 with only a couple of system hangs, but I hear this is normal
as many people were complaining about the exact same problems I was having.
I have tried this with the PCI Digital TV tuner in and out of the system,
still hangs. I have tried to reduce the HT multiplier back to 2 and still
hangs.
I thought it may have had something to do with XP SP2, but it does it under
XP64bit as well. I might try it under Win2k just to see what happens. The
software I am using worked flawlessly under XP SP2 on my old mobo, an
A7N8X-E Dlx with XP2500+.
The nForce3 250G chip's heatsink is VERY hot (can't touch it for more than a
few seconds without burning my finger) - I assume this is relatively normal
as I have now seen people adding aftermarket heatsinks (Zalman NB47) to it -
I have one on order now to try it out myself. Asus PC Probe reports the
chipset temp as being 40degC, however I would guess 55-60degC at least from
touching it. As was suggested this may be affecting SATA or PATA transfers
causing the system to crash.
I have noticed one thing of concern, I have checked all of the PSU rails
going to the Mobo and all are in perfect spec. The supply that concerns me
is the 12v rail. With a multimeter at to 20pin and 4pin connectors I get
12.01V exactly - does not vary at all even with load change using Prime95 or
TMpgEnc loading the system down. However, the BIOS, Asus PC Probe and
HMonitor all report the 12v rail as varying between 11.56 and 11.72 volts,
never any higher.
Has anyone else with one of these boards noticed this? Is this normal, or
have I found a problem?
This is all driving me nuts, if anyone could help I would be grateful.
Bryon
I have posted a couple of times now in the a.c.periphs.mainboard.asus group
trying to find a fix for my system
freezing everytime I do MPEG2 to MPEG2 re-encoding. Like to see if anyone
here has a clue as to what may be happening.
My system...
Asus K8N-E Deluxe Mobo Bios 1.05
Athlon64 2300 (Not overclocked)
1024MB Kingmax DDR-466 (2x512 - Slot 1 & 2)
Asus 9600XT Video
WD 120GB SATA (Boot)
WD 80GB ATA (Data)
480W Tagan PS (TG480-U01)
Windows XP SP2 AND Windows XP 64bit Edition 1218
VisionPlus DTV Digital TV tuner
I am having problems where post (ie a day or two after initaial recording -
so not simultaneous) re-encoding MPEG2 streams from my VisionPlus DTV card
using pretty much any MPEG2 software I can find (including TMpgEnc)
eventually freezes my computer. I normally get through the first 5 minutes
of video (10 minutes encoding time) before it freezes. It does not BSOD or
reboot - just freezes with no mouse movement or keyboard response. I have
found that turning off MMX, SSE, SSE2, etc in TmpgEnc appears to make
everything work better, but it makes it 5 times slower to encode and I am
not satisfied that this is a solution.
I am now convinced the system is otherwise stable. I have tried Memtest86+,
prime95, and just about all of the load tests on the "Ultimate Boot CD"
(which is great BTW) and all pan out flawlessly. I did play through the
entire Doom 3 with only a couple of system hangs, but I hear this is normal
as many people were complaining about the exact same problems I was having.
I have tried this with the PCI Digital TV tuner in and out of the system,
still hangs. I have tried to reduce the HT multiplier back to 2 and still
hangs.
I thought it may have had something to do with XP SP2, but it does it under
XP64bit as well. I might try it under Win2k just to see what happens. The
software I am using worked flawlessly under XP SP2 on my old mobo, an
A7N8X-E Dlx with XP2500+.
The nForce3 250G chip's heatsink is VERY hot (can't touch it for more than a
few seconds without burning my finger) - I assume this is relatively normal
as I have now seen people adding aftermarket heatsinks (Zalman NB47) to it -
I have one on order now to try it out myself. Asus PC Probe reports the
chipset temp as being 40degC, however I would guess 55-60degC at least from
touching it. As was suggested this may be affecting SATA or PATA transfers
causing the system to crash.
I have noticed one thing of concern, I have checked all of the PSU rails
going to the Mobo and all are in perfect spec. The supply that concerns me
is the 12v rail. With a multimeter at to 20pin and 4pin connectors I get
12.01V exactly - does not vary at all even with load change using Prime95 or
TMpgEnc loading the system down. However, the BIOS, Asus PC Probe and
HMonitor all report the 12v rail as varying between 11.56 and 11.72 volts,
never any higher.
Has anyone else with one of these boards noticed this? Is this normal, or
have I found a problem?
This is all driving me nuts, if anyone could help I would be grateful.
Bryon